Fitness Break Room Podcast

Kendra literally booked a flight to Boulder to come to record this podcast and we had never met in person. We developed an amazing friendship out of this weekend. It saddens me that it took me this long to publish this episode especially.    Follow her on IG at @KendraSato

This was recorded in 2019. Due to life and work, I am extremely late to publish but Teddy is a great person.  Follow Teddy on Instagram:  @StrengthCoachTherapy

This was recorded in 2019 so some of the information might be dated but Marcus' story is very inspirational.    Check out Marcus on Instagram at:  @kettlebellexercises @living.fit    

Jim Ferris is a Philadelphia based trainer whose clientele includes professional athletes, local teams, everyday fitness enthusiasts, and maybe a celebrity or two depending on who is in town. Jim is known for his work in the basketball community from training with the Philadelphia 76ers for many years and training several NBA players that live their offseason in the Philadelphia area. Jim’s expertise in the training field, along with his dynamic and creative training style keeps players, coaches and clients coming back year after year. - Instagram - @gymferris Twitter - @GYM_Ferris - Latest Article - https://www.google.com/amp/s/simplifaster.com/articles/professional-strength-conditioning-coach/amp/    - TrueCoach: #1 App for Personal Trainers who want to manage more clients in less time. 25% off your first month 14 Day Trial, NO CREDIT CARD NECESSARY Promo Code: Fitness Break Room www.truecoach.co - Onnit: Total Human Optimization 10% off your purchase Promo Code: FitnessBreakRoom www.onnit.com/fitnessbreakroom

Clifton Harski is the Chief Operations Officer and Fitness Director for Fitwall, a functional strength training studio with 7 locations across the United States. At Fitwall, the Pain-Free Performance Training System is a cornerstone of their industry-leading preventative fitness programming. Since 2011, Clif has taught over 300 workshops, courses and certifications in multiple disciplines and education systems including, MovNat, CK-FMS, Spartan Racing, Animal Flow, and Kettlebell Athletics and the Pain-Free Performance Specialist Certification, where he serves as a master level instructor. He also holds advanced certifications from ACE, NSCA, NASM, StrongFirst, CrossFit, DVRT, FMS, Animal Flow, KBA, Spartan and FRC. TrueCoach: #1 App for Personal Trainers who want to manage more clients in less time. 25% off your first month 14 Day Trial, NO CREDIT CARD NECESSARY Promo Code: Fitness Break Room www.truecoach.co Onnit: Total Human Optimization 10% off your purchase Promo Code: FitnessBreakRoom www.onnit.com/fitnessbreakroom

After spending 20 years in the advertising and design industry, sitting at desk and overweight enough to make climbing a flight of stairs tiring, Andrew said to himself one day, "I'm tired of being tired."  Armed with some graph paper, a love of table-top gaming and some odd ideas on how to make fitness "fun", Andrew started Nerdstrong in his garage in 2013. Since then, Nerdstrong has gone on to develop and deploy hundreds of gameplay-inspired workouts for thousands of fit nerds around the world.  Instagram: @nerdstronggym facebook.com/nerdstrong podcast: https://wearenerdstrong.podbean.com/     TrueCoach: #1 App for Personal Trainers who want to manage more clients in less time. 25% off your first month 14 Day Trial, NO CREDIT CARD NECESSARY Promo Code: Fitness Break Room www.truecoach.co Onnit: Total Human Optimization 10% off your purchase Promo Code: FitnessBreakRoom www.onnit.com/fitnessbreakroom

"Jill Miller, C-IAYT, ERYT is the co-founder of Tune Up Fitness Worldwide and creator of the self-care fitness formats Yoga Tune Up® and The Roll Model® Method. With more than 30 years of study in anatomy and movement, she is a pioneer in forging relevant links between the worlds of fitness, yoga, massage, athletics and pain management. She is known as the Teacher’s Teacher and has trained thousands of movement educators, clinicians, and manual therapists to incorporate her paradigm shifting self-care fitness programming into athletic and medical facility programs internationally. She has crafted original programs for 24 Hour Fitness, Equinox, YogaWorks, and numerous professional sports teams. She and her team of 500+ trainers help you to live better in your body with an emphasis on proprioception, mobility, breath mechanics and recovery. She has presented case studies at the Fascia Research Congress and International Association of Yoga Therapy conferences. She has the rare ability to translate complex physiological and biomechanical information into accessible, relevant moves that help her students transform pain, dysfunction and injury into robust fitness. Jill is the anatomy columnist for Yoga Journal Magazine and has been featured in Shape, Men’s Journal, Good Housekeeping, Women’s Health, Yoga Journal, Self, and on the Today Show and Good Morning America. Jill is regularly featured on the Oprah Winfrey Network. She is the creator of dozens of DVD’s including Treat While You Train with Kelly Starrett DPT and is the author of the internationally bestselling book The Roll Model: A Step by Step Guide to Erase Pain, Improve Mobility and Live Better in your Body. Based in Los Angeles, CA, she is a wife and mother of two small children and is currently writing her second book.”    www.tuneupfitness.com   INSTAGRAM: @yogatuneup @tuneupfitness   FACEBOOK:    https://www.facebook.com/TuneUpFitness/   https://www.facebook.com/jillmillerfaust/     TrueCoach: #1 App for Personal Trainers who want manage more clients in less time. 25% off your first month 14 Day Trial, NO CREDIT CARD NECESSARY Promo Code: Fitness Break Room www.truecoach.co Onnit: Total Human Optimization 10% off your purchase Promo Code: FitnessBreakRoom www.onnit.com/fitnessbreakroom

Dr. Mark Cheng is one of the most challenging folks to talk about because of the breadth of his background. Born in the US to Chinese immigrant parents, his life would continually reflect the struggle to integrate the East & West into a fluid, coherent, productive, and harmonious way of life. Unimaginably fortunate in his attempts to train and study under the some of the world’s greatest in their particular fields of expertise across a wide domain of endeavors, Cheng would continuously search for the common threads of logic in these fields and their masters. As a medical, movement, & martial professional, Dr. Cheng’s life work revolves around distilling that knowledge down in ways that help everyone from the professional athlete to the injured or elderly move, live, and perform better.  As a traditionally trained martial artist, Cheng received his earliest introduction to Tai Chi from his father. As the years went on and he relocated to the Los Angeles area for college, Cheng went on to study different arts from a variety of masters, some of whom also pushed the impressionable young man to study the healing arts. The areas of Cheng’s investigation ranged from close quarter counter-terrorism methods to esoteric energetic practices, acupuncture, and intensive meditations. Eventually, he would formalize his studies with Masters and Doctorate degrees in Chinese medicine and Acupuncture as well as California state licensure.  Having the opportunity to practice and serve many martial artists allowed Cheng the chance to quickly become familiar with what worked and what didn’t in both mainstream and “alternative” sports medicine. Legendary Bruce Lee disciple, Dan Inosanto, became one of his regular patients. It was through Inosanto that Cheng met his strength and conditioning mentor, Pavel Tsatsouline, a former Spetznaz (Soviet special operations) instructor. Tsatsouline almost singlehandedly is responsible for the popularity of the kettlebell, having brought the Russian weightlifting tool out of obscurity and into gyms and living rooms across the world through a worldwide network of instructors that he personally trained and certified. Cheng had the good fortune to train intensively with Tsatsouline on a private and semi-private basis until being awarded Senior Instructor status under the Russian icon.  Tsatsouline, who founded the Russian Kettlebell Challenge (RKC) and later StrongFirst (SF) organizations, introduced Cheng to world-class physical therapist and movement savant, Gray Cook. Cook took everything Cheng learned and turned it on its ear. Giving him a diagnostic lens through which to better guide his clinical efforts and a guidance system that would give Cheng a dramatic edge over his colleagues in the strength and conditioning field. Because of his work with Tsatsouline and Cook, Cheng would spend years touring the world as an instructor for both of their organizations. During those years, Dr. Cheng would be actively producing instructional media. Through DragonDoor Publications, he was featured as the main instructor in its Kettlebell Warrior DVD. He went on to produce a corrective exercise DVD called Prehab-Rehab 101 through On Target Publications, which came about as a result of questions about what he felt were the most effective corrective exercises with the athletes and patients he’d worked with. With Beachbody, the producers of P90X, he produced a collaboration based on Tai Chi, which was called “Tai Cheng”. That marked the first program in Beachbody’s catalogue that was appropriate for people coming back into fitness after periods of long inactivity or injury. Over the past few years, Cheng collaborated with best friend and colleague, Dr. Jimmy Yuan, to create a new curriculum that was a distillation of the best of his experiences in the fields of martial arts, strength and conditioning, and rehabilitative movement. He reasoned that the best warrior cultures throughout history were successful because of the physical, mental, and emotional development practices that improved longevity and athleticism. Rather than using the martial training methods in the exact format that they’d been passed down to him, Cheng extracted the essence of the combatives drills and reorganized it into training drills and exercises that were low risk, high reward. Thus, even individuals who were averse to violence or physical contact or people who were unable to risk participation in contact sports could benefit enormously from his training methods.  Cheng christened the new curriculum, K3 Combat Movement Systems. The 3 Ks make reference to kettlebells (or strength training outside of the directly tactical), kick-punch arts (such as Kung-fu, karate, etc.), and implement based arts such as Kali (Filipino martial arts) and Krabi-Krabong (Thai weaponry). Cheng is passionate about seeing K3 spread across the world is humbled by the level of interest and support that the K3 certification course has been receiving right out of the gate. With a background that gives him unique perspectives on restoring and developing the human body and a die-hard passion for helping trainers, coaches, and clinicians become even more effective in their craft, Cheng has something special to share with every listener. Instagram: @DrMarkCheng Twitter: @DrMarkCheng www.drmarkcheng.com K3 Combat TrueCoach: #1 App for Personal Trainers who want manage more clients in less time. 25% off your first month 14 Day Trial, NO CREDIT CARD NECESSARY Promo Code: Fitness Break Room www.truecoach.co Onnit: Total Human Optimization 10% off your purchase Promo Code: FitnessBreakRoom www.onnit.com/fitnessbreakroom

Jason and Lauren co-founded Achieve Fitness, a gym in Somerville, MA with a mission to bring inclusivity and positive vibes to the fitness space. Alongside their incredible team, they've built a facility where the emphasis is on making people feel welcome, comfortable, and supported by the coaches and the community.   In the last year, Lauren and Jason had a baby, and founded two more companies, AchieveMentors and AchieveOnline. AchieveMentors is a mentorship platform for up and coming personal trainers who are looking for guidance, support, and opportunities for growth in the health and fitness field. AchieveOnline is a platform for online workout programs, where folks from all over the world have access to either pre-set or individualized workout programs written by the Achieve Fitness program design team!   Links: Achieve Fitness Achieve Mentors Achieve Online Instagram   TrueCoach: #1 App for Personal Trainers who want manage more clients in less time. 25% off your first month 14 Day Trial, NO CREDIT CARD NECESSARY Promo Code: Fitness Break Room www.truecoach.co Onnit: Total Human Optimization 10% off your purchase Promo Code: FitnessBreakRoom www.onnit.com/fitnessbreakroom      

Jonathan Goodman is the creator of the largest collaborative blog for personal trainers, the Personal Trainer Development Center (thePTDC) and the founder of the world's first certification for online trainers, the Online Trainer Academy. He’s the author of 7 books including Ignite the Fire, Viralnomics, and the seminal textbook on online personal training. Jon has been featured in Men's Health, Forbes, Entrepreneur, and many more. Originally from Toronto, Jon spends his winters traveling the world with his wife and baby boy. • www.theptdc.com/ota • TrueCoach: #1 App for Personal Trainers who want manage more clients in less time. 25% off your first month 14 Day Trial, NO CREDIT CARD NECESSARY Promo Code: Fitness Break Room www.truecoach.co • Onnit: Total Human Optimization 10% off your purchase Promo Code: FitnessBreakRoom www.onnit.com/fitnessbreakroom  

Welcome back to the Fitness Break Room! We are so sorry for going MIA. Sam took a new job, and Jessica moved across the country.  In the spirit of kicking things off, we are going to give you guys the story behind John Wolf and Shane Heins the Co-Developers of the Onnit Academy Education System.  Sam and Jessica met through John and Shane, so this episode is going to be special. Check out: @CoachJohnWolf @ShaneHeins @OnnitAcademy   Free 2-Week Trial to TrueCoach Use Promo Code Fitness Break Room for 25% off your first month. Save 10% at Onnit: www.onnit.com/fitnessbreakroom

This week in the Fitness Break Room, we interview our friend Ashleigh VanHouten who's the host of the Paleo Magazine Podcast, a writer for Paleo Magazine, and a health coach extraordinaire. This is one strong, funny woman who loves her game meats!  Ashleigh loves to eat, move, and learn, and has channeled these passions into a career. Follow us as she takes us through how she turned her passions into a career of a lifetime.  Enjoy! Sam & Jess P.S. Big news.  We have a new free course for any of you who are looking to make your fitness business a viable vocation. If you want to take your fitness business from idea to first launch in the real world, this course is for you . . . and it's free so no excuses. Visit www.fitnessbreakroom.com/course to enroll now. 

Alex is the Founder of Good Joo Joo, an Austin-based marketing agency specializing in multi-channel digital advertising and automation for people who sell (awesome) stuff online. They're experts at helping brands implement & scale advertising as well as automating marketing into a well-oiled machine. Some clients include Onnit, Animal Flow, 10th Planet Austin, Black Swan Yoga, Innovative Results Gym, and the Austin Chamber of Commerce. Enjoy the show! Sam & Jess

Today, we interview our friend Mike Fitch, the Founder of the Bodyweight Athlete and Founder of Animal Flow. He discusses he merged artistic expression with training which ultimately birthed a super beautiful and innovative fitness program that combines a wide range of exercises and ground-based movement combinations with animal swagger. Enjoy the show! Sam & Jess

Today, we interview our friend Onnit Battleropes Master Coach, Aaron Guyett. He's a Marine Corps combat instructor, a combat veteran, currently a Staff Sergeant in the Marine Corps Reserves, former gym owner, Founder of Leaders of Leaders. Wow - he does a lot.  Not only is Aaron a rockstar in the fitness industry, he's a wonderful dad and husband which he says is and always will be his primary gig.  Enjoy the show! Sam & Jess

Today, we're sitting down in Austin Texas with our friend Bret Gornick founder of Live Better as well as the co-host of the Live Better Podcast. He's a retreat-throwing extraordinaire, Nike Master Trainer, coach, personal trainer, Barry's Bootcamp instructor, yoga instructor, Chicago native . . . he does a lot. Bret and his team are on the pursuit of the best day ever, every single day. He aims to achieve this goal by inspiring and motivating his communities through fitness and retreats. Check out the video version here. Or on Youtube here.   Enjoy the show! Sam and Jess

Chad Landers is a 1991 graduate of the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology. He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) with the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), and in 2007 became the first American to graduate with a Diploma in Sports Nutrition from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Chad has been a personal trainer in Los Angeles for 25 years, and has owned his gym, Push Private Fitness, for more than 15 years. He is the former CA State co-chair of USA Powerlifting (USAPL), and is a USAPL Masters Athlete, Coach and State Referee. Chad lives in Studio City, CA and is married to two-time Oscar-winning Sound Editor, Karen Baker Landers. Enjoy the show, Sam and Jess

Today we interview, Amanda Edell, Devon Moretti, and Kat Nardizzi - 3 top ladies in the fitness industry. We discuss: What opportunities there are in fitness Where you can take your career What it's really like to be a strong female entrepreneur in the fitness industry Enjoy the show! Sam & Jess

Mike Salemi's journey in strength & conditioning started at the age of 15 as a competitive Powerlifter. At 19, Mike became a WABDL World Champion in the Bench Press and Deadlift. While working as a D1 collegiate strength & conditioning coach, Mike was introduced to the power of the kettlebell, and the work of respected Holistic Health Practitioner Paul Chek. Both have had large influences on Mike's development as a more well-rounded athlete and person in the years that followed. Currently, as an avid Kettlebell Sport competitor, Mike has achieved the ranking of Master of Sport (Long Cycle & Biathlon), and became the 2017 WAKSC World Champion in Long Cycle. Through his unique approach, Mike has been able to integrate a high-performance form of athletic training using a holistic model. His dream is to continue creating educational materials and programs that support a more balanced athlete. Enjoy the show, Sam and Jess

Jennifer Vogelgesang is a personal trainer and strength coach at her home-away-from-home, The Movement Minneapolis. She is also a certified USA Powerlifting club coach and RKCII kettlebell coach, and for years has trained clients both in person and online. Her clients range in age from their mid-twenties to mid-sixties. They are complete gym newbies and they are veteran iron slingers. Enjoy this great show with our special guest who's strong in mind, body, and soul.  Enjoy! Sam & Jess

Hey, you. Today, you can start to live your own myth and create your destiny. Rog and Amanda did it - you can too. Rog drove from Michigan to Boston to hand in a resume for an unpaid internship. Amanda was a music teacher but realized she wanted to teach others how to be comfortable in their own skin, not to play music. Today, they are both expert trainers at the wacky world of Mark Fisher Fitness - perhaps the happiest, most magical place any coach could ever hope to work. How did they create their own destiny from ground zero? Find out by listening to the show :) Enjoy! Sam & Jess * * * * *  P.S. We're almost ready with our free online fitness business course with our partner the Toolkit Agency for those of you who are looking to take your fitness business idea to launch. Stay tuned for this great free resource - we're happy to do what we can to help you and the industry elevate!

This is a great show for any young athletes who are looking to take their talents beyond the sport. Our Guest Jeremy Hills is the director of sports performance for ONNIT Sports Performance and former running back for the Texas Longhorns. He discusses his journey from growing up in project housing to now training some of the best athletes in the nation. At just 28-years-old, he has a lot of wisdom to share - far beyond his years. Definitely a great show for football fans everywhere. Jeremy is on the inside of the complexities of the NFL Combine and has some great insight into what makes remarkable athletes different from the rest of us. Enjoy the show! Sam & Jess   * * * * *  P.S. We get a ton of questions from people who are looking to start their fitness business. In response, we just finished recording a free online fitness business course with our partner the Toolkit Agency for those of you who are looking to take your fitness business idea to launch. Stay tuned for this great free resource - we're happy to do what we can to help you and the industry elevate!

This is a great show for any trainers and PTs looking to train elite level athletes and are looking to make a positive impact in their lives. This week on the Fitness Break Room Podcast, we interview Donnie Maib, the Head Coach for Olympic Sports and the Assistant Athletics Director for Athletic Performance at the University of Texas at Austin. He's also the author of "Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork" and a keynote speaker who touches on some pretty important topics:  The 8 Laws of Motivation – Keys to Unlocking Greatness  Transitions – Navigating Changes in Your Career Path and Life  The Culture Code – Building and Sustaining a Championship Culture  Combatting Complacency – Our Greatest Threat to Success  Unstuck – Fresh Traction for Common Struggles   Enjoy listening and learning from this OG in the industry! Sam and Jess * * * * *  P.S. THIS is your LAST chance to win April 2018's Fitness Industry Night Giveaway sponsored by our friends at KNOW Foods. We're giving you guys a few more days to win.They're giving one of you an assortment of their grain-free treats. We're talking about care package filled with grain-free donuts, cookies, bread, muffins, waffles *drool. Visit www.fitnessbreakroom.com before 5/7/18 to enter to win. Good luck, friends. ;) 

This is a great show for any trainers and PTs looking to train professional athletes and/or create an online fitness empire.  This week on the Fitness Break Room Podcast, we interview our friend Dr. John Rusin, the expert in pain-free performance training on his journey from schooling, to living in a Days Inn with a doctorate, to being a go-to resource in the fitness industry through writing articles, shooting videos, coaching, treating, training, and much more. Dr. John is a great example of a man with grit - someone who has the passion and perseverance to accomplish a long-term goal. Don't miss our next Break Down where we explain how you can improve your grit too. Enjoy, Sam and Jess * * * * *  P.S. This is your LAST chance to win April 2018's Fitness Industry Night Giveaway sponsored by our friends at KNOW Foods. They're giving one of you an assortment of their grain-free treats. We're talking about care package filled with grain-free donuts, cookies, bread, muffins, waffles *drool. Visit www.fitnessbreakroom.com before 5/1/18 to enter to win. Good luck, friends. ;)

This is a great show for any trainers or aspiring fitness professionals who are looking to build their own online business.  This week on the Fitness Break Room Podcast, we interview our friends Missy Bunch and Ryan Steenrod, founders of Death of the Desk - the go-to resource to stop common sitting-related/office-life problems before they start.  On this show, we discuss how they created Death of the Desk to be the online resource to fight the effects of work environments and their journey throughout the fitness industry to get them where they are today. Lots of great information for people who are looking to make a big move in their life. Click here to watch the video version. Enjoy, Sam and Jess * * * * *  P.S. This is your chance to win April 2018's Fitness Industry Night Giveaway sponsored by our friends at KNOW Foods. They're giving one of you an assortment of their grain-free treats. We're talking about care package filled with grain-free donuts, cookies, bread, muffins, waffles *drool. Visit www.fitnessbreakroom.com before 5/1/18 to enter to win. Good luck, friends. ;) 

This is a great show for anyone that's looking to start their own podcast or is curious as to how one would build a fitness empire.  This week on the Fitness Break Room Podcast, we interview our great friend, the magical, mystical, Mike Bledsoe - the co-founder of #1 rated fitness show Barbell Shrugged, Barbell Business, and host of his current podcast The Bledsoe Show.  He discusses his unique journey in the industry starting with actually studying training for 2 years before every lifting weights which made for a really interesting reverence for doing fitness right to co-creating a fitness empire with a bunch of his best friends in a fairly short amount of time. Today, he's traveling the world with his beautiful wife Ashley holding workshops and seminars for truth seekers everywhere. Definitely, don't miss this show. Lots of wise words from a man who isn't afraid to experiment with life itself.  Click here to watch the video version.  Enjoy, Sam and Jess * * * * *  P.S. This is your chance to win April 2018's Fitness Industry Night Giveaway sponsored by our friends at KNOW Foods. They're giving one of you an assortment of their grain-free treats. We're talking about care package filled with grain-free donuts, cookies, bread, muffins, waffles *drool. Visit www.fitnessbreakroom.com before 5/1/18 to enter to win. Good luck, friends. ;) 

In this 4th episode of the Forged in Fire Break Down series, we're discussing affirmations: How they reprogram your subconscious mind How some of the most successful people in the world are committed to their affirmations The 2 types of affirmations you should do How you can go about building this powerful ritual into your life Enjoy, Sam and Jess * * * * *  P.S. This is your chance to win April 2018's Fitness Industry Night Giveaway sponsored by our friends at KNOW Foods. They're giving one of you an assortment of their grain-free treats. We're talking about care package filled with grain-free donuts, cookies, bread, muffins, waffles *drool. Visit www.fitnessbreakroom.com before 5/1/18 to enter to win. Good luck, friends. ;) 

This is a great show for any athlete or trainer looking to understand the inner workings of a professional athlete.  This week on the Fitness Break Room Podcast, we interview Tommy La Stella of the Chicago Cubs. What an honor it was to sit down with this determined and talented athlete. He discusses the ride of losing his passion, finding himself, and what it's really like to be a professional American athlete. This is so fitting as it's right in line with our Break Down theme of forging strength through fire.  Click here to watch the video version.  Enjoy, Sam and Jess * * * * *  P.S. This is your chance to win April 2018's Fitness Industry Night Giveaway sponsored by our friends at KNOW Foods. They're giving one of you an assortment of their grain-free treats. We're talking about care package filled with grain-free donuts, cookies, bread, muffins, waffles *drool. Visit www.fitnessbreakroom.com before 5/1/18 to enter to win. Good luck, friends. ;) 

For this episode, Jessica and our guest co-host Brian are going to be discussing the reality of perception: We’ll explore how you perceive everyday life and how that impacts the way life happens to you 2 basic mindsets that shape our realities: fixed mindset vs growth mindset The ritual you can do to every month to release feelings and beliefs that are holding you back from creating new awesome things and experiences in your life For more details on the topics discussed in this show, check out our show notes here.  Enjoy! - Sam and Jess * * * * *  P.S. This is your last chance to win March 2018's Fitness Industry Night Giveaway sponsored by our friends at ONNIT (again) love those guys. They're giving one of you a 40# Iron Man Kettlebell. Visit www.fitnessbreakroom.com before 4/1/18 to enter to win. Good luck, friends. ;)   

This is a great show for any gym owner or aspiring gym owner.  Our last stop in Orange County is in San Clemente with our friend Markus Gerszi, CMO of Gymwright. Markus specializes in creating 5-star gym experiences and has worked with hundreds of affiliates to level up their businesses. He's spent all of his adult life honing his craft of enhancing the user's experience in a diverse range of jobs and projects, now combining everything he's learned into this unique vocation of helping affiliated gyms thrive.  Click here to watch the video version.  Enjoy, Sam and Jess * * * * *  P.S. This is your last chance to win March 2018's Fitness Industry Night Giveaway sponsored by our friends at ONNIT (again) love those guys. They're giving one of you a 40# Iron Man Kettlebell. Visit www.fitnessbreakroom.com before 4/1/18 to enter to win. Good luck, friends. ;) 

Coach Brian Paquette joins Jessica in the basement studio for a great show on the 6 character strengths that you can elevate which will help you see successes in every area of your life – in finding your purpose, increasing your prosperity, and leveling up your relationships. For a full list of these character strengths, visit our show notes here.  Don’t miss it! - Sam and Jess * * * * *  P.S. This is your chance to win March 2018's Fitness Industry Night Giveaway sponsored by our friends at ONNIT (again) love those guys. They're giving one of you a 40# Iron Man Kettlebell. Visit www.fitnessbreakroom.com before 4/1/18 to enter to win. Good luck, friends. ;) 

This is a great show for all of you physical therapists and aspiring PTs. We've traveled down to Orange County from LA to visit with our friend Dr. Quinn Henoch to discuss bringing the PT and strength/performance world together. He has a great website that should be a massive catalyst for helping athletes find the right physical therapist in their area.  He's a great guy with a ton of knowledge and he was a total pleasure to talk with. Definitely a "don't-miss" kind of show. Huge thanks to Dr. Quinn for giving us his time and knowledge.  Click here to watch the video version.  * * * * *  P.S. This is your chance to win March 2018's Fitness Industry Night Giveaway sponsored by our friends at ONNIT (again) love those guys. They're giving one of you a 40# Iron Man Kettlebell. Visit www.fitnessbreakroom.com before 4/1/18 to enter to win. Good luck, friends. ;)   

We're back with Break Down Series 2: Forged in Fire. It’s all about elevating your passion, resilience, determination, and focus. We’re going to figure out what allows a person to maintain the discipline and optimism to persevere in their goals even in the face of discomfort, rejection, and a lack of visible progress for weeks, years, or even decades. It’s a tough love series. Character strengths and weaknesses. Fixed mindset vs growth mindset The reality of perception. Explore how you perceive everyday life and how that impacts the way life happens to you. Affirmations. Learn the 2 types of affirmations that you can use to change your state instantly and for the long term.  Deliberate practice. How can you systematically elevate a strength or level up a weakness?  Grit. Measure your personal character strength of perseverance and learn how you can improve it. Embrace the suck. Learn ways to forge grit through certain types of intentional discomfort. This is going to be a fun one >:) Craft your story. An exercise in looking at your life with appreciation and learning how to share it. Gratitude. A lesson in appreciating the present and how working more gratitude magic dust into your life has exponentially positive results. If you're enjoying the show, we'd love a written review and click subscribe so you never miss an episode. ***** Lastly, don’t forget to visit our website to enter into our monthly fitness industry night giveaway. This month of March 2018, Our friends at ONNIT are giving one of you an Ironman Kettlebell weighing in at 40#s. To enter to win: Go to fitnessbreakroom.com and fill out the prize form with your name and email and you're in! Get extra entries by sharing the contest on facebook, emailing it to a friend, or tweeting the contest. Leave us a written review and email a screenshot to me at jessca@fitnessbreakroom.com or you can send us a DM on our Instagram account @fitnessbreakroom and I will manually give you an extra entry to win this prize. Enjoy the show! Sam and Jess

This is a great show for anyone who's looking to start a smaller boutique style gym or studio. Smaller community = bigger impact.  This is also an awesome show for people who have experienced challenges and are finding their way again. This week, we start our LA tour kicking it off with this inspirational interview with Cody Story. Cody is the owner of Storey Fitness, a boutique style gym in Los Angeles. In this show, he discusses how he got to his current state of helping others free themselves on an inner personal level and liberating themselves from the current limitations of their bodies. Cody isn't your typical gym owner. His story is one in a million and he's truly a one in a million man. From being on top as one of the top snowboarders in the world, to hitting rock bottom living on the streets, to completely reinventing himself, to finding his way and enjoying life's more subtle pleasures as he contributes to the health and happiness of his community. . . You're not going to want to miss this show. He gives some amazing insight into how challenges can birth some seriously awesome growth and success. Enjoy, Sam and Jess * * * * *  P.S. This is your chance to win March 2018's Fitness Industry Night Giveaway sponsored by our friends at ONNIT (again) love those guys. They're giving one of you a 40# Iron Man Kettlebell. Visit www.fitnessbreakroom.com before 4/1/18 to enter to win. Good luck, friends. ;) 

This is a great show for anyone in the fitness industry. Seriously. Dr. Andy Galpin is our special guest for this episode of Fitness Break Room and we couldn't be more stoked to be able to co-create this awesome conversation about the industry and how to get where you want to go in your career. Dr. Andy is a tenured Professor in the Center for Sport Performance at CSU Fullerton, an author, a regular guest on the Barbell Shrugged podcast, and also offers a ton of other free and valuable content for us to learn from on his website and other podcasts in the industry. On this show, he and Sam discuss: How not to get the attention of an industry leader Several things you should consider before you decide you want to work with top-level athletes How opening your eyes and staying endlessly curious throughout your life will bring your opportunities you could never have architected yourself In addition to being a brilliant human, Dr. Andy is an amazing storyteller. If you're into learning massive amounts of helpful and useful info while also being entertained - follow Dr. Andy via every medium you can. You won't be disappointed. See the rest of the show notes on our website here, and get his book "Unplugged" here.  Enjoy the show, Sam and Jess * * * * *  P.S. This is one of the last days to enter to win February 2018's Fitness Industry Night Giveaway sponsored by our friends at ONNIT. They're giving one of you a pair of 35# Captain America Barbell Plates. Visit www.fitnessbreakroom.com before 2/28/18 to enter to win. Good luck. ;) 

OPEX is home to arguably some of the US’ most consistently great coaches. This week, on Fitness Break Room we interview Jim Crowell and Michael Bann who are a few of the men who run that operation. They go into detail on how great coaches and trainers are born and how they themselves became leaders of this movement. Click here to enter to win our monthly Fitness Industry Night Giveaway. This month (Feb 2018), you have a chance to win a pair of 35# Captain America Barbell Plates from our friends at ONNIT. Enjoy the show, Sam and Jess

Watch the video version of this VIP interview with Eric Dannenberg from EXOS on our website here.  Want to know how the coaching experts at EXOS help top-tier performers execute at their very best for as long as possible? This is a great show for trainers who would like to know their ingredients EXOS prescribes to help the best of the best perform at a high-level day after day. This week, we interview Eric Dannenberg, the Performance Manager for EXOS who ensures that everything that comes through their doors (methodologies, partnerships, products) are ready to be executed at a high level. "We do the simple things savagely well." That's their mantra. If you haven't heard about this business, you're definitely familiar with the athletes, teams, business and military organizations they help operate at their very best. Don't miss this powerful insider insight into an organization that's making big things happen in our industry from our brilliant and humble friend Eric Dannenberg. Click here to enter to win our monthly Fitness Industry Night Giveaway. This month (Feb 2018), you have a chance to win a pair of 35# Captain American Barbell Plates from our friends at ONNIT. Enjoy the show,

"Strength is for everyone." This week we're blessed to have Sam Johnson founder of StrengthFarm and Betina Gozo Nike Master Trainer and Women's Health Magazine's Next Fitness Star (2017) as special guests on the Fitness Break Room. They believe true strength is the emotional or mental qualities necessary in dealing with situations or events that are distressing or difficult. And they're people who've experienced a lot of life in a fairly short amount of time. Get your ego in check, people! These two are humble, powerful, and so empowering. We all have a lot to learn. To see the video version, visit: www.fitnessbreakroom.com/strengthfarm Please subscribe if you're enjoying the show. Even better, leave us a review! And don't forget to enter to win our Fitness Industry Night Giveaway. You could win for Feb 2018: Captain America Shield Barbell Plates 35# by ONNIT. Enter your name and email at fitnessbreakroom.com Enjoy the show, Sam and Jess

This is a great show for people who're looking to work with professional golfers, pro baseball players, or even the occasional WWE wrestler. Dr. Jimmy Yuan has a pretty awesome job. He's a chiropractor who's built his practice to allow him to play around with all kinds of healing modalities which are sought after by professional athletes and grandma Bettys alike. On this show, he discusses his journey from confused-about-the-future young adult to where he is today and the guiding themes that have helped him make the right choices when "luck" brought opportunity his way.  For more show notes, visit our website here.  Enter to win our monthly Fitness Industry Night Giveaway here.  If you're enjoying the Fitness Break Room, please leave us a written review on iTunes. Good ratings and reviews help us keep the Break Room lit. Enjoy the show!

Enjoying the journey is easier said than done. Even enjoying the completion of a goal or project can be a little underwhelming after the weeks or months of work and ramp up. On this show, Sam and Jess realize while recording, they could really improve in this department. How do you celebrate your accomplishments? What have you done for yourself to say "thank you" for a job well done?  Tag @fitnessbreakroom on IG with a photo of your style of celebrating to give recovering workaholic Sam some ideas on how he can gift himself for years of grind. The winner will get a free Passion Planner (Jessica's favorite task management tool). Get our favorite reflection questions here to be more mindful of how your month went to celebrate the wins you might have a difficult time recalling.  Don't forget to enter into our monthly fitness industry night giveaway here. This month's sponsor - LIFEAID!

This is an awesome show for people who are looking to understand how the greats in the fitness industry market themselves. From hustling bootleg anime to becoming the tech, marketing, and operations wizard behind some of the best companies in the functional fitness space, on this show Doc Williams discusses his quest to become a paid ninja. Just a few highlights of Docs' journey - he was on the 2016 Olympic Medic Staff, the 2015 Arnold Sports Fest third-place finalist in America's Next Great Trainer challenge, a massage therapist for DC Brawlers for two seasons and he was a top nationally ranked battle DJ when he was 15. Don't miss this fascinating story! See the video version here. Enter to win our fitness industry night giveaway at www.fitnessbreakroom.com Share your love of this show with your friends in the industry. Let's get better together. *****

Most of us want to get more done in a day, month, year . . . lifetime. If you’re one of these people, you’re going to love this Break Down with Doc Williams.  Doc is the wizard behind a few of the biggest brands in the functional fitness space. Today, we’re blessed to have him on the show to walk us through his top 5 productivity categories and his favorite software, tools, and tech that are out there to help us crush in all of these areas. Project management. Appointments. Sales systems. Follow up. Presentation Links to all of the software and tools mentioned on this show can be found on the show notes page here.  If you're enjoying the show, we'd love a written review and click subscribe so you never miss an episode. ***** Lastly, don’t forget to visit our website to enter into our monthly fitness industry night giveaway. This month of January 2018, our friends at LIFEAIDare giving one of you a ton of FITAID to aid in your training recovery, and a couple cases of FOCUSAID - a ready to drink nootropic in a can. To enter to win, Go to fitnessbreakroom.com and fill out the prize form with your name and email and you're in! Get extra entries by sharing the contest on facebook, emailing it to a friend, or tweeting the contest. Leave us a written review and email a screenshot to me at jessca@fitnessbreakroom.com or you can send us a DM on our Instagram account @fitnessbreakroom and I will manually give you an extra entry to win this prize. Enjoy the show!

This is a great show for trainers who are looking to train elite professional athletes. Coach Matt Kite is responsible for the development of training cycles and education for D1 Sports’ Coaches who train some of the best collegiate, professional, and NFL Combine athletes in the world. 1st rounders Tim Tebow, Michael Oher, Bobby Carpenter and DeAngelo Williams all trained for the combine at D1. More than 125 athletes, including Jimmy Graham, Peyton Hillis, T.J. Lang and Linval Joseph, have started their NFL careers through D1’s Combine Training Program. In this show, he discusses his journey into the business of coaching elite athletes and now owning the programming that’s making a huge impact on American sports. Since recording this show, Matt has officially accepted the role of Master Coach at D1 Sports Training. Congrats, Matt! Read more about Matt on the show notes page.  Enter to win our fitness industry night giveaway at www.fitnessbreakroom.com Share your love of this show with your friends in the industry. Let's get better together. *****

Last week we talked about clearing and mastering our mind to create space for all of those new ideas and creative solutions that you’re going to come up with. Today, we have a GREAT show with a new special guest host, master of goal setting and goal achieving, our friend, author and ultra-marathoner Rick Alexander. He goes over his 6-step framework called the Bucket List Blueprint which is one of the best goal setting/achieving frameworks we've come across. Get Rick's book, Burn Your Couch: A Manifesto for the Average Adverse at www.fitnessbreakroom.com/bookshelf If you’re enjoying the show, go ahead and subscribe so you don’t miss out on any stories of people who are making a huge impact on our fitness community. Lastly, don’t forget to visit our website to enter into our monthly Fitness Industry Night Giveaway. This month of January 2018, our friends at life aid are giving one of you a ton of FITAID to aid in your training recovery, and a couple cases of FOCUSAID - a ready to drink nootropic in a can. To enter to win, Go to fitnessbreakroom.com and fill out the prize form with your name and email and you're in! Get extra entries by sharing the contest on facebook, emailing it to a friend, or tweeting the contest. Leave us a written review and email a screenshot to me at jessca@fitnessbreakroom.com or you can send us a DM on our instagram account @fitnessbreakroom and I will manually give you an extra entry to win this prize. Enjoy the show!

Last week we talked about enhancing your mind and being more creative. Today, we’re going to talk about clearing and mastering our mind to create space for all of those new ideas and creative solutions that you’re going to come up with. Many of us spend a ton of time and energy taking care of our bodies and helping other people take care of their bodies. But when it comes to the mind, sometimes that comes as an afterthought. We can’t see our mind and our thoughts getting all dad bod in the mirror so it’s just less obvious when you’re getting saggy in the mental department and often we think of the mind as something outside of our own control. But your thoughts are things and like we covered in the last two shows on limiting beliefs and becoming more creative, you can have total control of these things. And just like your body, your mind can get unruly and out of hand and the more you let it just do whatever it wants, the more you’ll feel the fluctuations of reactive or repressive emotions that affect you and the people around you. Developing a good relationship with your mind is critical to building a life that’s successful on your own terms. On this show, we discuss some habits you can start cultivating right now for less stress and distraction to create space for more creativity and more enjoyment in life. For the resources mentioned on this show visit: www.fitnessbreakroom.com/mind-master

This is the perfect show trainers who are looking to help their clients achieve metabolic flexibility. It's also a great show for people who can't decide what to study in university. Ask Dr. Mike - he's done it all!  In this show, Sam interviews Dr. Mike T Nelson on Fitness Break Room Podcast about how he helps his clients and trainers master metabolic flexibility through movement, nutrition, bodywork, and more. Enter to win our fitness industry night giveaway at www.fitnessbreakroom.com Share your love of this show with your friends in the industry. Let's get better together. *****

This week, we’re finally moving up the Pyramid of Results. For the last two Break Downs, we've identified your values and beliefs which affect your thoughts - and thoughts are what we’ll focus on with this show. We'll specifically focus on how to enhance your thoughts and get your creative juices flowing. Heightened creativity might not be something you immediately think of when you imagine the qualities of a successful trainer, gym owner, or any other type of entrepreneur but it is SO important. Besides being intelligent, integral, and having initiative - creativity is one of the most important qualities of someone who gets places in the world and makes a big impact on their communities. This show is also going to be filled with some of our favourite books and resources so if reading more and learning more is a part of your New Years resolution, we’ll have all of these books and resources linked in our show notes at fitnessbreakroom.com/creativity Enjoy the show!

This is the perfect show for both anyone who's looking to become a personal trainer.  In this show, Sam interviews Ashleigh Kast who discusses her journey as she started off in fitness and gives us an awesome look into the real-life journey of a personal trainer who's in the hustle today.  Watch the video version at www.fitnessbreakroom.com/ashleigh-kast Enjoy! Enter to win our fitness industry night giveaway at www.fitnessbreakroom.com Share your love of this show with your friends in the industry. Let's get better together. *****

On this Break Down, we’re going to continue to explore the foundational level of the Pyramid of Results by identifying, destroying, and replacing the beliefs that are holding you back from being the best version of yourself. You'll never reach your goals if you don’t know what your limiting beliefs are so this is a great show for anyone wanting to be greater than you are now. Learn more about the steps at www.fitnessbreakroom.com

This is the perfect show for both men and women who are training female clients. In this show, Sam interviews Lisa Maximus who visited him in Austin to host the Gym Jones women-specific training program at Onnit Gym. Since recording this show, Lisa made the decision to commit herself solely to training female clients through LisaMaximus.com Training female clients can be a challenging task because there are so many hormonal, physiological, and societal complexities that are unique to women. On this episode, you'll get some insight into how you can better train your female clients through the expertise of Lisa Maximus and her passion for helping trainers understand how to turn women-specific "issues" into "empowerment." Enjoy! Enter to win our fitness industry night giveaway at www.fitnessbreakroom.com Share your love of this show with your friends in the industry. Let's get better together. *****

Today, we start at the foundational level of the pyramid of results: identifying your values and beliefs. By the end of this show, you’ll get set on the right track to identifying what value or superpower you bring to the world. We have a downloadable PDF on our website which you can get here with the 64 archetypes of humanity that we discuss on this show. In your business, the product isn’t fitness - the product you’re selling is YOU. So taking the time to understand who you are is actually more important than the thing you’re selling to make money. And the best way to market yourself is to sell your own version of your Truth. People sense honesty at a deep level so when your style of branding matches your inner values you come across as authentic and therefore trustworthy. And people want to do business with trustworthy people. When you live a life which aligns with your values, you become a homing beacon that attracts the right people, clients, and opportunities into your life. Like attracts like and you’ll find the right people just show up at the right place and the right time. How this works: Click here to download the list of 64 archetypes of humanity and print it out. Scan the left column to see which values jump out at you. Circle the first ones that catch your eye. Do the same on the dark side column. Which of those words really poke at you, make you pissed off, or make you feel uncomfortable/guilty. Remember, just like Jedis and Siths, we real-life humans can choose to use our power for good or not so good. There are always 2 sides to any power. Now take your time with the groupings you’ve identified as having importance to you and think about what it means to fully harness these superpowers. Try to move beyond their familiar meanings and look deeper into some that you think may resonate with you. This shouldn’t be a quick process. You’re going to need to give yourself time to contemplate because you’ve about to make some pretty committal decisions on what you really believe you’re a champion for. There may be 3 or more superpowers that define you, but try to pick 1 to be your primary. Become the personification of the value you choose and become aware of when the dark side shows up in your life. It's a good clue that you're not in alignment, not being truthful to yourself or others, or maybe you just need to eat and take a nap.